Pete Hegseth is a Fox & Friends Weekend co-host who frequently advises President Trump both on-air and privately and campaigned to be named as Trump’s Veterans Affairs secretary. He also has lobbied the president to pardon military personnel charged and convicted of war crimes. Hegseth founded the Koch-linked conservative nonprofit Concerned Veterans for America in 2011, which he ran till around the 2016 presidential primaries. On November 12, 2024, President-Elect Donald Trump announced he would be nominating Hegseth to serve as Secretary of Defense.